Cet essai s'attache à montrer l'importance de la notion de pervertibilité pour le philosophe Jacques Derrida. Il est résolument au confluent de la littérature (ma discipline d'attache), de la philosophie et de la psychanalyse. J'y mène une enquête au plus près des textes et de la pensée derridienne en y privilégiant une approche pluridisciplinaire (histoire des idées, linguistique, analyse du discours et des dispositifs textuels, etc.). Ainsi, ce livre ne sombre pas dans l'hermétisme de certains ouvrages sur Derrida, mais il (...) respecte néanmoins l'exigence de complexité et d'inventivité de ce que nous pourrions appeler la déconstruction. Celui-ci permet de mieux comprendre à la fois la philosophie et le style de Jacques Derrida, ainsi que leurs évolutions durant la seconde partie du XXe siècle. De ce fait, il contribue substantiellement aux travaux actuels en littérature et en philosophie, champs de connaissances et de pratiques auxquels il appartient. Cette enquête met aussi de l'avant une conception renouvelée du texte littéraire basée sur la notion de pervertibilité, et ce, non pas pour faire l'apologie de propriétés prétendument subversives de la littérature, mais afin de mieux saisir dans des textes complexes comme ceux de Jacques Derrida, des dispositifs pervers de la pensée philosophique, ainsi que des gestes concrets d'écriture. (shrink)

Neste artigo, interessamo-‑nos pelo neologismo «perverformatif» [«performativo»] usado por Jacques Derrida em La Carte postale e em Marx & Sons. Se Derrida é um outro «mestre do performativo», título que ele reservava ao «Plato» de La Carte Postale não é por negar a Lei ou a sua «verdade», mas porque tem necessidade delas para assegurar a incidência de um desafio. O que performativamente se põe em obra e em abismo nos «Envios» passa assim por um desejo «perverso» de fazer advir (...) esta lei e de a desviar. A nossa hipótese é a de que é precisamente o que se performa no idioma daquele que não tem senão uma língua que não é a sua e para quem as palavras «contêm a sua própria perversidade». Interrogaremos, pois, os rastros deste vocábulo, a sua virtualidade a operar e o seu alcance – linguístico, mas também ético e político – no pensamento de Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

In Trois ans avec Derrida (Three Years with Derrida), his biographer, Benoît Peeters, notes that Jacques Derrida’s seminar was designed “like a theoretical serial which, aside from its slumps and convolutions, nonetheless maintained a kind of suspense and featured genuine cliff-hangers at the end of each session” (Peeters, 2010). Can one truly compare a seminar to a novelistic device like that of deferred narrative? Such is the question to which I devote my attention in this article, a question which is (...) discussed here in a dual — historical and formal — perspective. I thus ask “what is a seminar?” and how, in light of Derrida’s seminars in particular, it becomes a work. In closing, I meditate on the notion of “deferred thinking” in Derrida’s teaching, using the central concept of différance as my starting point. (shrink)

“I type very quickly, very badly, with many errors [fautes],” Jacques Derrida confessed in a late interview. This paper proposes that the typographical error —usually viewed as a mere “accident” to be corrected or normalized— may in fact be understood as a productive site for deconstructive reading and thought. Drawing on Nietzsche’s provocative suggestion that the typewriter acts as a “collaborator” in thinking, I examine Derrida’s use of the writing machine with an eye to his ubiquitous typos or fautes de (...) frappe. I focus on Derrida’s readings of Heidegger in the Geschlecht series, analyzing the typescript of Derrida’s 1984-85 seminar “Le fantôme de l’autre” from which the texts of Geschlecht II and Geschlecht III are derived, in order to locate a Derridean thinking of the frappe or Schlag (that is, the blow, strike, or imprint) at the heart of every “type” (one of the many meanings of the German word “Geschlecht”). Following Derrida’s reading in the Geschlecht series and his own typographical practice, I argue that the typo should be thought of as the condition of possibility of every type —and as a defining difference between Derrida and Heidegger. (shrink)

"L’écriture philosophique de Sarah Kofman a eu pour enjeu « la vie comme texte ». De L’enfance de l’art (1970) à L’imposture de la beauté (1995, posthume), la philosophe a exploré cette question dans un geste de lecture audacieux par lequel elle confronte philosophes anciens (Empédocle, Héraclite, Platon), modernes (Descartes, Kant, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Comte, Marx) et contemporains (Sartre, Blanchot, Derrida). Sarah Kofman convoquait aussi dans toutes ses analyses deux interlocuteurs privilégiés, Freud et Nietzsche. La littérature, l’idéologie, le féminin, le rire, (...) les rapports à l’art et à la psychanalyse, l’autobiogriffure furent les « voies de traverse » par lesquelles celle qui, enfant, avait survécu à la Shoah, reconduisit la philosophie « au cœur de la vie ». Plus de vingt-cinq ans après la parution de Rue Ordener, rue Labat et du Mépris des Juifs en 1994, n’est-il pas temps de prendre la mesure de cette œuvre philosophique?Cet ouvrage réunit, dans une perspective transdisciplinaire et internationale, philosophes, littéraires, historiens, historiens de l’art et psychanalystes autour du travail de la philosophe. Multipliant les approches et les interprétations, faisant droit aux questions historiographiques et archivistiques liées à son œuvre, ces lectures entendent donner toute son actualité critique à la voix unique de Sarah Kofman."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relevance of the cognitive science of morality to moral epistemology, with special focus on the issue of the reliability of moral judgments. It argues that the kind of empirical evidence of most importance to moral epistemology is at the psychological rather than neural level. The main theories and debates that have dominated the cognitive science of morality are reviewed with an eye to their epistemic significance.

In Republican Guard , Nicholas Xenos describes the Straussian network and its nature, focusing upon delineating what in Leo Strauss’ writings has influenced and can tell us about the ‘character of American power today and the rhetoric through which it is enhanced and sustained.’ In the end he argues and demonstrates that Strauss’ political theory provides the means by which an imperial project can be camouflaged under the cloak of an appeal to liberal democracy. This book will be of (...) interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations. (shrink)

May assumes that if moral beliefs are counterfactually dependent on irrelevant factors, then those moral beliefs are based on defective belief-forming processes. This assumption is false. Whether influence by irrelevant factors is debunking depends on the mechanisms through which this influence occurs. This raises the empirical bar for debunkers and helps May avoid an objection to his Debunker’s Dilemma.

Education – typically and rightly held to be an incontrovertible good – has for some time now been dominated by mass formal schooling systems. These systems routinely harm and oppress many students. I argue that they do so impermissibly, and I call this stance “educational pacifism”. I propose that Maria Montessori’s views on mass formal schooling systems broadly align with educational pacifism and that, therefore, she can be considered an educational pacifist. Finally, I claim that contemporary Montessorians ought to be (...) educational pacifists, firstly because educational pacifism makes a compelling moral argument and secondly because Montessori herself agrees with it. (shrink)

Kant's Critique of Judgement analyses our experience of the beautiful and the sublime in relation to nature, morality, and theology. Meredith's classic translation is here lightly revised and supplemented with a bilingual glossary. The edition also includes the important First Introduction.

Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In _Humanity's End,_ Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines (...) the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve "longevity escape velocity"; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans. (shrink)

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children’s characteristics. Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan ‘Brave New World’ or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past Written from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of view Considers real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to have Uses ‘moral images’ as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about (...) moral dilemmas Provides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers with no knowledge of genetics Creates a moral framework for assessing all new technologies. (shrink)

UK radioactive waste management policy making is currently taking place within a participatory and analytic- deliberative decision-making framework; one that seeks to integrate public and stakeholder values and perspectives with scientific and technical expertise. One important aspect of this socio-technical reframing of the radioactive waste problem is an explicit recognition that legitimate and defensible policy making must take into account important ethical issues if it is to be a success. Thus, there is a need for tools to incorporate adequate assessment (...) of ethical issues in a way that is compatible with this approach. The ' ethical matrix ' is one such tool used recently to address a range of agricultural and natural resource issues that shows promise for this field. This paper assesses the strengths and limitations of the matrix and outlines a framework for the development of alternative tools to better satisfy the needs of ethical assessment in radioactive waste management decision making processes. (shrink)

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children’s characteristics. Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan ‘Brave New World’ or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past Written from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of view Considers real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to have Uses ‘moral images’ as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about (...) moral dilemmas Provides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers with no knowledge of genetics Creates a moral framework for assessing all new technologies. (shrink)

Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In _Humanity's End,_ Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines (...) the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve "longevity escape velocity"; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans. (shrink)

The demands of morality can seem straightforward. Be kind to others. Do not lie. Do not murder. But moral life is not so simple. We are often confronted with difficult situations in which someone is going to get hurt no matter what we do, in which we cannot meet all of our obligations, in which loyalties come into conflict, in which we cannot help everyone who needs it, or in which we must compromise on important values. It is natural to (...) describe such situations as moral dilemmas. This chapter is about the psychology of how we represent, process, and make decisions about what to do when moral life is difficult in this way. Our first aim is to provide some conceptual clarity on what exactly turns a choice situation into a moral dilemma. Here, we propose a normative account of moral dilemmas in terms of moral appropriate feelings of conflict in response to strongly conflicting reasons. Our second aim is to critically survey existing psychological work, providing an overview of some important findings, while raising questions for future research. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar offers a more nuanced view of the transformative potential of genetic and cybernetic technologies, making a case for moderate human enhancement—improvements to attributes and abilities that do not significantly exceed what ...

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

A major problem for interpersonal aggregation is how to compare utility across individuals; a major problem for decision-making under normative uncertainty is the formally analogous problem of how to compare choice-worthiness across theories. We introduce and study a class of methods, which we call statistical normalization methods, for making interpersonal comparisons of utility and intertheoretic comparisons of choice-worthiness. We argue against the statistical normalization methods that have been proposed in the literature. We argue, instead, in favor of normalization of variance: (...) we claim that this is the account that most plausibly gives all individuals or theories ‘equal say’. To this end, we provide two proofs that variance normalization has desirable properties that all other normalization methods lack, though we also show how different assumptions could lead one to axiomatize alternative statistical normalization methods. (shrink)

Cet article est disponible en texte intégral en format PDF.

Cet article propose une analyse des huit occurrences de la formule homérique epos t’ephat’ ek t’onomazen qui sont précédées, dans le premier hémistiche de l’hexamètre, par le verbe enenipein, dans le but de mettre en lumière la signification particulière qu’y recouvre le verbe onomazein « apostropher par des mots injurieux ».

Cet article se propose de mettre en lumière les dynamiques interactionnelles mises en œuvre par la pratique comique de l’onomasti kômôidein, à travers le recours à certaines instruments théoriques fournis par la socio-linguistique (analyse interactionnelle et conversationnelle). En soulignant l’analogie existante entre les injures que les acteurs adressent contre des citoyens réels appelés par leur nom et la calomnie, la diabolè, il propose de nuancer l’opposition, qui domine la critique aristophanienne, entre les interprétations « ritualistes » et les interprétations « (...) politiques » de ce phénomène dramatique. (shrink)

Cet article est disponible en texte intégral en format PDF.

Cet article est disponible en texte intégral en format PDF.

Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the practical domain—i.e., determining what (...) one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. (shrink)

I address Sinnott-Armstrong's argument that evidence of framing effects in moral psychology shows that moral intuitions are unreliable and therefore not noninferentially justified. I begin by discussing what it is to be epistemically unreliable and clarify how framing effects render moral intuitions unreliable. This analysis calls for a modification of Sinnott-Armstrong's argument if it is to remain valid. In particular, he must claim that framing is sufficiently likely to determine the content of moral intuitions. I then re-examine the evidence which (...) is supposed to support this claim. In doing so, I provide a novel suggestion for how to analyze the reliability of intuitions in empirical studies. Analysis of the evidence suggests that moral intuitions subject to framing effects are in fact much more reliable than perhaps was thought, and that Sinnott-Armstrong has not succeeded in showing that noninferential justification has been defeated. (shrink)

This entry summarizes an emerging subdiscipline of both empirical bioethics and experimental philosophy (“x-phi”) which has variously been referred to as experimental philosophical bioethics, experimental bioethics, or simply “bioxphi”. Like empirical bioethics, bioxphi uses data-driven research methods to capture what various stakeholders think (feel, judge, etc.) about moral issues of relevance to bioethics. However, like its other parent discipline of x-phi, bioxphi tends to favor experiment-based designs drawn from the cognitive sciences – including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics – to (...) tease out why and how stakeholders think as they do. (shrink)

This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the ...

Published in 1721 by the prominent Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather, The Christian Philosopher was the first comprehensive book on science to be written by an American. Building on natural theology, Mather demonstrated the harmony between religion and the new science associated with Sir Isaac Newton. His survey of all the known sciences from astronomy and physics to human anatomy presented evidence that both celestial and terrestrial phenomema imply an intelligent designer. Winton Solberg's introduction places Mather's treatise in its widest (...) historical context. In addition to tracing the origins and sources of Mather's work, Solberg analyzes the book's contents, its reception, and its significance in American intellectual and cultural history. This edition affirms Mather's importance to American thought as a deeply religious intellectual who introduced the Enlightenment to America. (shrink)

Francis Fukuyama's controversial new book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, has elicited varied reactions, but like it or not, it seems likely to be influential. Here are three opinions. —Ed.

This edition affirms Mather's importance to American thought as a deeply religious intellectual who introduced the Enlightenment to America.".

This book surveys various sciences from astronomy and physics to human anatomy to present evidence that both celestial and terrestrial phenomena imply an intelligent designer.

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that (...) specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even when the consenter makes an irrational and inauthentic decision. Finally, Study 3 showed that the effect of autonomy on judgments of valid consent carries important downstream consequences for moral reasoning about the rights and obligations of third parties, even when the consented-to action is morally wrong. Overall, these findings suggest that laypeople embrace a normative, domain-general concept of valid consent that depends consistently on the possession of autonomous capacities, but not on the exercise of these capacities. Autonomous decisions and autonomous capacities thus play divergent roles in moral reasoning about consent interactions: while the former appears relevant for assessing the wrongfulness of consented-to acts, the latter plays a role in whether consent is regarded as authoritative and therefore as transforming moral rights. (shrink)

BackgroundAmidst expanding roles in education and policy making, questions have been raised about the ability of Clinical Ethics Committees (CEC) s to carry out effective ethics consultations (CECons). However recent reviews of CECs suggest that there is no uniformity to CECons and no effective means of assessing the quality of CECons. To address this gap a systematic scoping review of prevailing tools used to assess CECons was performed to foreground and guide the design of a tool to evaluate the quality (...) of CECons.MethodsGuided by Levac et al’s (2010) methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews, the research team performed independent literature reviews of accounts of assessments of CECons published in six databases. The included articles were independently analyzed using content and thematic analysis to enhance the validity of the findings.ResultsNine thousand sixty-six abstracts were identified, 617 full-text articles were reviewed, 104 articles were analyzed and four themes were identified – the purpose of the CECons evaluation, the various domains assessed, the methods of assessment used and the long-term impact of these evaluations.ConclusionThis review found prevailing assessments of CECons to be piecemeal due to variable goals, contextual factors and practical limitations. The diversity in domains assessed and tools used foregrounds the lack of minimum standards upheld to ensure baseline efficacy.To advance a contextually appropriate, culturally sensitive, program specific assessment tool to assess CECons, clear structural and competency guidelines must be established in the curation of CECons programs, to evaluate their true efficacy and maintain clinical, legal and ethical standards. (shrink)

Cotton examines Plato 's ideas about education and learning, with a particular focus on the experiences a learner must go through in approaching philosophical understanding.

A lively topic of debate in decision theory over recent years concerns our understanding of the different risk attitudes exhibited by decision makers. There is ample evidence that risk-averse and risk-seeking behaviours are widespread, and a growing consensus that such behaviour is rationally permissible. In the context of clinical medicine, this matter is complicated by the fact that healthcare professionals must often make choices for the benefit of their patients, but the norms of rational choice are conventionally grounded in a (...) decision maker’s own desires, beliefs and actions. The presence of both doctor and patient raises the question of whose risk attitude matters for the choice at hand and what to do when these diverge. Must doctors make risky choices when treating risk-seeking patients? Ought they to be risk averse in general when choosing on behalf of others? In this paper, I will argue that healthcare professionals ought to adopt a deferential approach, whereby it is the risk attitude of the patient that matters in medical decision making. I will show how familiar arguments for widely held anti-paternalistic views about medicine can be straightforwardly extended to include not only patients’ evaluations of possible health states, but also their attitudes to risk. However, I will also show that this deferential view needs further refinement: patients’ higher-order attitudes towards their risk attitudes must be considered in order to avoid some counterexamples and to accommodate different views about what sort of attitudes risk attitudes actually are. (shrink)

This classic work on critical thinking--now fully updated and revised--uses a novel approach to teach the basics of informal logic. Relying on real-world examples, the authors show how to win an argument, defend a case, recognize a fallacy, see through deception, and more.

Artworks are seen here as presenting themselves as a means by which to navigate and plot the city for a writing interlocutor; The examples discussed reveat a plethora of emergent forms which are concentrated into three key modalities of urban arts practice in the twenty-first century walking play and cultural memory walking includes the talked walks of artist such as Richard Wentworth, the generative street incursions of Francis Alys, and the walking spectator at a site-based event, including works by Gustv (...) Metzger, Mark Wallinger and Pavel Althamer. Play embraces popular instances of mass public mobilisation in the form of flash mobs and mobile clubbing as well as ̀creative interventions such as free ranning, graffin writing and video sniffing, which reveal themselves to be engaged increasingly in a dialogue with the ̀high art' of artists like Antony Gomely, Mark Quinn and Carsten Holler. Cultural memory is considered via the burgeoning cases of holocaust installations, interrogating two of the best-known- and controversial-European urban sites from the point of view of the physical encounters that they implicity invite Peter Eisenman's memorial in Bertin and Rachel Whitereads' in Vienna. --Book Jacket. (shrink)

The authors explore the history of experiments in economics, provide examples of different types of experiments and show that the growing use of experimental methods is transforming economics into an empirical science.

This volume is about abstract objects and the ways we refer to them in natural language. Asher develops a semantical and metaphysical analysis of these entities in two stages. The first reflects the rich ontology of abstract objects necessitated by the forms of language in which we think and speak. A second level of analysis maps the ontology of natural language metaphysics onto a sparser domain--a more systematic realm of abstract objects that are fully analyzed. This second level reflects the (...) commitments of real metaphysics. The models for these commitments assign truth conditions to natural language discourse. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)